Five quick thoughts: Why Sunday’s victory showed George Karl at his best

Give Denver coach George Karl a mounting injury list and he doesn’t whine about it.

Instead, he just pulls more talent off his bench and goes to work.

The Nuggets had dug deep into their bench Sunday night without key contributors Rudy Fernandez, Danilo Gallinari, Nene and Kosta Koufos. For good measure, Karl lost starting center Timofey Mozgov for good measure in the first half.

And it didn’t matter. The Nuggets eked out a 99-94 victory using a talented and deep bench that has been rebuilt after the Carmelo Anthony trade last season.

“The thing is we didn’t really have time to get happy,” Karl said. “The schedule has something like 28 more games left and they all have to be presented with a little more importance than a regular-season game.”

It was Denver’s third consecutive victory after the All-Star break after losing 12 of its last 16 before then. The final loss was a 114-99 home beatdown to the Spurs that Karl said helped turn that losing culture around.

The change happened that night after the Spurs jumped to a 65-39 halftime lead. Instead of folding, the Nuggets fought back to make that game competitive.

Since then the modest three-game winning streak over Portland, Houston and San Antonio are victories over the teams that the Nuggets will have to beat to make the playoffs.

“In the second half of that game, we found some things actually,” Karl said. “The way we’ve played started in the second half against San Antonio.

“I thought our energy and commitment, no matter how we played on the scoreboard, we played the right way with a passion and intensity and it’s carried over into the practices after the All-Star Game and the (three) games we’ve played.”

Whether Denver can make that playoff push with the depleted roster remains in doubt. But with Karl coaching them, those who write them off do so at their own peril.

“I thought for the most part we were mentally in a good place,” Karl said. “I told the team after the game that I don’t want to break the news, but we can play better. I don’t know if we can play harder, but we can play better.”

Here are four other quick takes from a loss where the Spurs never seemed in rhythm throughout the game.

It’s a golden age of great point guards across the NBA. And one of the most underrated ones is Ty Lawson, who made life miserable for Tony Parker all night while missing his first career triple-double by only a rebound. His speed gave the Spurs fits all night and was the major reason the Nuggets had a 24-8 edge in transition points. You can see why he was considered one of the major components of the Anthony trade with New York.

The Spurs got a bad break when DeJuan Blair went down on the first offensive possession and was limited to 3:35 in playing time. Blair had a career night in the Spurs’ most recent victory over Denver with 28 points and 12 rebounds. It’s conceivable he could have done the same things Sunday night if he hadn’t knocked knees with Mozgov.

I wonder if Spurs coach Gregg Popovich might have a long talk over the next few days with the Spurs marketing people about some of their in-game promotions. The Taco Cabana Kiss-Cam intruded into Parker’s foul shots midway through the second quarter. I’m not saying that the loud reaction caused Parker to miss the second of his two shots. But it certainly didn’t help.

Manu Ginobili was understandably disappointed in the game results of his return to the lineup. But it was noticeable that Ginobili didn’t appear nearly as rusty coming off his strained oblique muscle as he did from the lengthy time on the injured list after breaking the fifth metacarpal in his left hand earlier in the season. The Spurs’ inspirational leader looked rusty at times, but still played nearly 24 minutes and was there at the end when his team was trying to make a comeback. I would expect him back in the starting lineup pretty soon — particularly if Danny Green’s 0-for-5 shooting slump in Sunday’s game extends very long.